


(i was) meant to be yours

by LadyOfPurple



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Post-Episode 57, Slow Burn, Suggestive Themes, as best i can, d&d mechanics who?? idk man i just work here, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2019-12-30 09:43:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18313085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOfPurple/pseuds/LadyOfPurple
Summary: “I-I mean,” she said, and wanted to punch herself for the sudden stammer out of nowhere, “you lookhappier,is all, and you don’t really seem very happy most of the time, and it’s justnice,you know? Seeing you happy, I mean. Youshouldbe happy.”---In which the past comes back to haunt us all.





	1. Chapter 1

The final dire wolf fell with a choked sort of gurgle, the feral light in its eyes fading as the crossbow bolt buried itself deep into the pelt of its neck. It stumbled once, jaws snapping sluggishly as it tried to howl, before collapsing finally in a growing pool of its own blood. It let out one last gasp as its lungs collapsed, and lay still.

Fjord attempted to wipe the gore from his face, only succeeding in smearing it around a little. “I  _hate_  those things,” he grumbled.

Nott began picking through the carnage, salvaging which bolts she could as Jester sheathed her handaxe, feeling the sweat dripping down her back as she stretched languidly. “Hey, Caleb,” she called. “Do some of your fancy wizard magic and clean us up, yeah?”

Caleb, carefully skirting deeper into the cave from his safe vantage point further down the short tunnel, blinked at her. “And what magic is that?”

“You know, that little cleaning cantrip, present-a-digitum—”

“Prestidigitation,” he corrected automatically.

“Yeah, that one. We’re all  _sticky_.”

He stepped gingerly around a bloodied mound of fur and bones. “I do not know it,” he said.

She huffed. “Why not?”

He paused a moment to shrug at her. “I haven’t needed it before,” he said.

She opened her mouth to respond but Beau’s voice cut across the cavern instead. “Give it up, Jess,” she said grumpily, brushing a sweat-slicked strand of hair from her face with the back of her arm. “Does he  _look_ like the kinda guy who would know Prestidigitation?”

“He’s a  _wizard_.”

“A wizard constantly smearing  _shit_ all over his face. On  _purpose_.”

“A wizard who happens to be standing  _right here_ ,” interjected Fjord pointedly.

“You should learn that one next, though,” said Jester, slightly peeved at the scolding. “It’s easy to get dirty again later.”

Caleb made a non-committal noise that could have been mistaken for agreement if she hadn’t been listening.

Fjord sighed. “Hey, Beau, help me with this guy, willya? We need a place to sleep.”

“ _Here_?” said Nott with disgust, pausing elbow-deep in dire wolf guts as Beau shuffled around her to help Fjord lift one of the larger corpses.

“You got a better idea? Look, we did our thing, we trekked up here, we killed shit, now it’s getting dark out and it’s at least three, maybe four hours’ walk to another decent camping space.” He shrugged. “It’s cleared out, it’s enclosed, and there’s only one entrance. I’d rather stay here than do any more hiking today, that’s for damn sure.”

“Oh, for —  _fine_ ,” she grumbled, and that was that.

The bodies were easily removed — a bit of heaving and grunting and sweating had them all piled neatly in a distant corner; what useful, salvageable body parts left behind were easily harvested, and the rest greedily given to their slavering moorbounders, finally brought inside when the carnage was complete — the blood, less so. It was eventually decided, after much debate, that Jester would use her last spell to create a modest tidal wave Fjord then used to wash away the viscera. It wasn’t perfect, and it was definitely wet, but the lack of gore was a definite improvement.

Jester dreaded the thought of going to bed spattered in blood, but the ache of her muscles was rapidly drowning out the discomfort of some temporary stickiness. Besides, a sleeping Jester wouldn’t notice the difference anyway. Caleb was muttering indistinctly, pacing slightly back and forth as tiny sparks of arcane energy swirled around his fingers. She leaned lightly on Beau as they watched him work, and moments later the bubble appeared, delicately placed in one of the drier corners of the cavern. He’d made it a dark gray this time, to blend in with the stone walls. The exhaustion was finally catching up to her as the adrenaline from the fight faded, she realized, as Beau moved off and she found herself without the temporary headrest of her shoulder — she couldn’t  _wait_  to sit down.

“Nice work, Caleb.” Fjord clapped him on the shoulder as he stepped past and vanished from view. The rest of them followed, and Jester let out a soft sigh as the atmosphere went from uncomfortably cool to pleasant and dry. “Alright, who’s taking first watch? Might as well play it safe, just in case that wasn’t the whole pack.”

“I can take it,” offered Caleb.

“Are you sure?” said Nott concernedly. “You look tired.”

He waved her off. “I am mostly unhurt,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

“Then I’ll stay up with you, so you won’t be alone.”

“I have some reading to do,” he said. “It won’t be terribly interesting.”

“I can do it,” said Jester. “I want to tell the Traveler about what we’ve been doing lately, anyway.”

Nott opened her mouth as if to protest, then seemed to decide against it. “Oh, all right,” she said.

“I guess I can take next watch,” said Beau. “Fjord?”

“Alright,” he said. “Y’all can wake us up in a few hours.”

The Hut settled into a comfortable, tired silence as they arranged themselves within the confines of the Hut. Jester let the haversack fall from her shoulders and dropped down beside it. A part of her regretted suddenly offering to stay up at the sight of most everyone else pulling out blankets and bedrolls and curling up around her — her arms ached from hacking apart the remains of the dire wolves, and depleting her stores of magic always left her feeling drained — but it  _had_  been a few days since she’d updated the Traveler on her adventures, after all. A few more hours was worth the trouble.

Caleb quickly pulled out a book, settling down in a far corner, and was soon engrossed in his own little world. From the way he flipped through the pages, she had a feeling he probably would have been staying up anyway, regardless of whether there was going to be a watch or not. Figures. Then again, he was a  _really_ fast reader. She almost asked him what was so fascinating, but, no, it was probably really stuffy and boring, and he didn’t look like he’d hear her anyway. She dug through the haversack instead and pulled out her sketchbook and ink.

Time to get to work.

The first hour or two passed without incident, the only sounds being the deep, steady breathing of their companions and the gentle rustling of paper, and Jester soon lost herself in sketching the nearest dire wolf in its final moments for the Traveler. Brush and ink flowing over paper; smooth lines, disconnected at first, coming together to form a coherent image; the distant yet comforting sense of amusement and approval from her ever-present deity — it was all very relaxing. With a few quick strokes she feathered out something resembling a tail and paused to consider her handiwork. Her stock of colored inks was running a bit low at the moment, but as soon as they got back to a proper shop she decided to go back to the picture. Spend some  _extra_ time on the blood.

Something nudged her shoulder as she put the final flourish on the shattering skull and she jumped, nearly jittering ink across the entire page. “Geeze, Caleb!” she said, quickly capping the ink bottle before she upset it. “You scared me.” He was so  _quiet_ , she hadn’t even noticed him crossing the Hut to stand next to her. He was so tall from her position on the ground she had to crane her neck to look him in the eye.

“I’m sorry, Jester, I didn’t—” He paused, cocking his head as he leaned over her shoulder to inspect the drawing. “Oh, that’s very good,” he commented.

She brightened instantly at the compliment. “Thank you!”

“I especially enjoy the pattern in the exploding brain matter.”

She held the book up a little to better admire it. “It  _is_ good, isn’t it?”

“Are those—?”

“Dicks?” She beamed. “I’m so glad you noticed.”

“How could I not?” He shifted slightly, pulling something out of his coat. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your drawing, I just thought you might be interested…”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “What’s this?”

Instead of answering he simply held the book out to her. She took the battered tome gently, the faded gold embossing of the title winking weakly at her in the low light.

“ _‘Scorching Embrace,’_ ” she read aloud. Her gaze flicked up to meet his, but his face betrayed nothing. “This is  _smut_ ,” she said in a mock-scandalized tone.

“There’s a particularly saucy encounter on page 59,” he said in response.

“For  _me_?” She clutched the book to her chest and batted her eyes. “Aww, you shouldn’t have!” It came out teasing, but a part of her was genuinely touched. As much as she adored  _Tusk Love,_ she was beginning to realize that, after rereading the same passages fifty times in a row, the prose _could_  become a bit stale.

He shrugged, hands in his pockets. “I just finished it,” he said, by way of explanation. “I thought you might enjoy it.”

She admired her new treasure, water spots ironically distorting the image of the male fire genasi on the cover, locked in a passionate embrace with his sultry elven mistress. “Thank you, Caleb,” she said, and hesitated slightly before handing it back to him. He looked mildly surprised.

“You don’t want it?” he said.

“Read it to me.”

He blinked.

“Read it,” she said again, feeling a wicked grin curling across her face. “Out loud. To me.”

There was a pause, in which his eyes traveled from her face down to the book between them and very slowly back again.

The grin turned coy. “Are you  _shy_?” she said.

She could have sworn a corner of his mouth twitched upwards under the shadow of his beard. “I am  _considerate_ ,” he corrected, gesturing vaguely to the sleeping bodies surrounding them. “We wouldn’t want to wake them.”

She leaned forward and looked up at him through her lashes, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “I can be  _quiet_ ,” she said, and batted her eyes.

For a split second she worried her teasing might have gone too far, but then his hand stretched out and plucked the book from her grasp, fingers lightly brushing her knuckles in the process. His hands were warm. “Okay,” he said, and lowered himself into a cross-legged position beside her.

She clapped her hands delightedly as he thumbed through the pages. “Pick something really  _dirty_ ,” she said.

There was a strange gleam in his eyes, a mischievous one he so rarely let slip, and she quietly relished in it. “You don’t want me to start at the beginning?” he said.

“Don’t be silly, they never put the good bits right at the _start_ ,” she said. She scooted closer and rested her chin in her fists, watching him expectantly. “Well?” she prompted after a few moments of silence.

He gave her a  _look_. Cleared his throat. “‘ _There, in the freezing rain, he held her tightly,’_ ” he began in a low voice, “ _‘but his arms were hotter than the Nine Hells themselves—’_ ” He paused. “What?”

“I-it’s just…” Already she couldn’t stop laughing. Quietly, of course. “Do you think it means ‘sexy’? Or, like,  _actually_  hot? Are the Nine Hells even hot?”

“Some of them are, I suppose. And he _is_ a fire genasi.”

“If they are,” she continued, “wouldn’t they be, like,  _super_ -hot? Like,  _super-duper-_ hot? Not sexy, though, probably. And he’s hotter than _that_.” She snickered again. “If he really was, she’d be  _melting_.”

There was that glint again. “That wouldn’t be very erotic,” he pointed out.

“What if—” She bit her lip as the image waltzed across her mind, “—what if he touched her and the flesh just kinda…” She gestured wildly. “Melted off her bones, and then she was just a  _skeleton_. And then he  _fucked the skeleton_.”

The deadpan look on his face didn’t shift, but now his eyes were _dancing_. “ _‘Scorching Embrace,’_  indeed,” he said.

She waved him on, covering her mouth to stifle her giggles.

“ _‘Her heaving bosoms—’_  What  _now_?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, muffled through clenched fingers. “That phrase always  _gets_  me, you know? Bosoms don’t  _heave_.”

“You know, we won’t get very far if you keep interrupting me,” he said.

“Go on, then,” she said, biting her tongue very hard inside her mouth. Beau shifted in her sleep at the sound, a little bit of drool slipping down her chin.

He continued in that low, gentle voice, all about heaving bosoms and passionate embraces, as the love-struck couple stumbled out of the rain into a nearby barn and began, predictably, to tear each other’s clothes off. Her tongue was going to  _bruise_  by tomorrow, surely, by all the laughter she was admirably keeping in check so far. There was something absurd about it all — trashy prose notwithstanding. Caleb Widogast, overwhelmingly stoic at the best of times, his lilting Zemnian accent describing to her _in detail_ the way steam roiled off the chiseled musculature of a fire elemental, with barely a twitch in his expression, making everything funnier, somehow. The situation was nearly enough to undo her in and of itself, really, if she stopped listening long enough to think about it. Her and Caleb, reading  _porn_  together, surrounded by their blissfully unaware friends.

Her fragile façade finally reached a breaking point, bursting into a fit of giggles she tried desperately to smother beneath clamped hands over her mouth.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Something funny, Jester?” he said. He was  _teasing_.

“Wha- _what_ did you just say?” she choked out.

There.  _There_  was the smile. Half of one, anyway. “I said,” he replied smoothly, readjusting his hold on the book, “ _‘her nimble fingers made quick work of the lacing on his breeches, and there, in all its glory, his throbbing love-wand rose to—‘_ ”

She dissolved again. “ _Throbbing,_ ” she wheezed, “ _l-love wand._ ”

“Would you like me to continue?” he said innocently. “I believe the phrase  _‘the passion-moistened depths of her private Bag of Holding’_  is coming up…”

Jester shook silently, a stitch in her sides as she swiped at a tear making its way steadily down her face. “It does  _not_ ,” she managed.

“Are you calling me a liar?” he said. Compared to his usual somber demeanor, he looked positively gleeful. He pointed at the passage, tilting the book so she could see. “Right there,” he said. “Right next to the description of the dimensional shackles…”

She had to shove her entire fist in her mouth to avoid waking the entire  _countryside_.

It took her nearly a full minute to recover from her fit, and as she gasped for breath he at last let out a chuckle, a low, throaty sound that made him smile,  _really_  smile, for the first time through it all. It wasn’t a  _big_  smile, exactly, but happy. Genuine. It made his eyes a little brighter, crinkled a little at the corners, but somehow that made him look younger. Healthier, somewhere under the beard and grime, like a weight had been temporarily lifted from his shoulders. Through her tears, she found herself admiring the slight curve of his Cupid’s bow, and the way the tilt of his head emphasized the height of his cheekbones.

Somewhere behind the stitch in her side she felt… something. A small something, an odd warmth, fluttering so slightly she couldn’t quite place it. Air filled her lungs in halting spurts, and for some reason she couldn’t figure out if it was easier or harder to breathe now.

Well, it _was_ a ridiculous book. Slowly, with difficulty, she regained her composure. “How,” she demanded in a low voice, “do you  _do_  that?”

“Read smutty literature?”

“Read _that_  with a  _straight face_ ,” she said, wiping tear residue from her cheeks. “To another  _person_.  _Out loud_ , You barely even smiled through the whole thing! You  _heard_  what you were reading, right?”

“Ah.” His gaze skittered for a moment, the smile faltering for only a fraction of a second. “I’ve had some… practice,” he said. “Keeping a straight face.”

Oh. _Oh_. With the Cerberus Assembly. The torture. Right. She could have kicked herself. “Well,” she said breezily, her ears going hot, “that was really good.”

“As good for you as it was for me?” he deadpanned. She shoved him at that, a little harder than she meant to, and he nearly fell over on top of Nott.

“ _Gross_ ,” she said, although she couldn’t quite explain why her voice went all  _breathy_  just now. “You’re  _gross_ , Caleb.”

He was laughing quietly again as he righted himself. “Maybe I should learn Prestedigitation, then,” he said, eyes dancing. She almost lost it  _again_.

“But,” she conceded as she composed herself, patting the abused shoulder, absently adjusting the hem of his ratty coat, “you have a really nice voice.”

“Do I?” he said. He sounded… surprised. And a little amused.

She nodded emphatically. “It’s really soothing, you know? It’s nice.” She paused a moment. “I like your accent,” she said. “I don’t know if I ever told you that before.”

His face softened slightly. If she didn’t know better, she could have sworn his cheeks went just a tinge pinker just then. “Thank you, Jester,” he said quietly. He looked down for a moment, at the book between them; at her hand, still on his shoulder. She was still touching him? There was a brief stutter in her mind, as she hesitated just a fraction of a second too long —  _‘…Even through his coat, he’s so warm…’_  — but then his eyes were on her again. “I like yours too,” he offered as an afterthought.

Something seemed to pass between them for a moment, although what _kind_ of something she wasn’t entirely sure — all she knew for sure was that she felt  _very_  self-conscious for some reason and it was suddenly a little hard to look him directly in the eye. She retracted her hand with the abrupt, halting jitter of someone caught doing something they shouldn’t, and swallowed with some difficulty. Why did her chest feel so  _tight_  all of a sudden?

“You should smile more often,” she heard herself say. It was a blunt statement, one she couldn’t remember deciding to say, but it came out soft somehow.

“Oh?” His voice was soft now too, a little embarrassed, even, and she found herself nodding.

“You look much better when you smile,” she said lamely, and mentally kicked herself.

He quirked an eyebrow at that.

“I-I mean,” she said, and wanted to punch herself for the sudden stammer out of nowhere, “you look  _happier_ , is all, and you don’t really seem very happy most of the time, and it’s just  _nice_ , you know? Seeing you happy, I mean. You  _should_  be happy.” The words fell out of her in a rush, like she was _nervous_ or something, but that was _silly_. Of course she wasn’t _nervous_. It was _Caleb_. Just Caleb, that’s all.

He looked away quickly, and now his cheeks were  _definitely_  pink as he let out an embarrassed cough. “I… ah,” he said awkwardly, and stopped.

There was that silence again, and she looked down to see her hands worrying at the hem of her dress. She forced them to still, forced a deep breath into her lungs as she smoothed out the wrinkles as best she could. Oh, but  _Traveler_  she felt strange, a bundle of directionless energy; giddy and a little lightheaded, like her blood had been replaced with electricity. Or ants.  _Electric_ ants. “What — um, what time is it?” she managed at last, and found herself confused at her own breathlessness.

He coughed again. “Ah, a bit past midnight,” he said. His face was a normal color now, his features rearranged into a more neutral expression, and a part of her felt a little sad the moment had passed.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “We should probably try to wake people up,” she said, forcing her voice into a lighter tone. “Who had the next watch?”

He closed the book slowly, his long fingers absently tracing the faded title. “Beau and Fjord, I believe,” he said.

“I’ll get Beau,” she said, and paused. “Hey, Caleb?”

“ _Ja_?”

“This was really fun.”

The ghost of a smile traced his lips. “ _Ja_ ,” he said. “It was.”

There was a pause again as neither of them moved.

“Well,” she said eventually.

“Well,” he agreed, and rose to once again tower over her. Hesitated a moment, then reached out a hand.

Her breath caught briefly in her throat —  _‘What is going_ on _?’_ — but she shook it off, letting him help her to her feet. He extended the book to her, but she pushed it back to his chest gently. “Keep it,” she said.

“Not to your liking after all?” he said.

“Well, how are you going to read it to me if  _I_  have it?”

He blinked slowly, and the corner of his mouth twitched again. “I see,” he said. “Alright.”

“You should do voices next time, though,” she added. “ _Accents_ , you know, _really_  get into it.”

His expression turned pained. “Jester, you know I’m terrible with accents,” he said.

“Well,  _yeah_ ,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “That’s what’ll make it funnier.”

He rolled his eyes a little, but he was still smiling. “Good night, Jester,” he said, and it wasn’t until he had released her to walk away that she realized he'd been holding her hand that whole time. 

Her chest tightened again and she shook herself. Boy, she must have been even  _more_  tired than she thought. She stepped gingerly through the sea of bodies and squatted down beside Beau, gently prodding her shoulder.

“Wazzat?” Beau jerked awake with a sharp inhale, blinking up at her blearily. “Wha — what time is it?”

“Midnight,” whispered Jester. “You’re drooling, by the way.”

Beau swiped at her chin, pulling herself awkwardly into a sitting position. “Already?” She yawned, stretching her arms high above her head. “God, I had the  _weirdest_  fuckin’ dream.”

“Oh?” Jester shuffled around her to dig for her own bedroll, shaking the blankets.

“Yeah…” Beau shook her head, raking fingers through her hair. “I was hitting on some girl in a tavern, and she was getting really into it, and then…” She shook her head again. “She turned into a Bag of Holding. On  _fire._ ”

Jester froze in the middle of spreading her blankets out, biting down on her tongue  _hard._  Her gaze flicked automatically over in Caleb’s direction, currently rousing Fjord, and in that moment he met her eyes. Oh, he’d heard, alright. He looked positively  _delighted_.

“Huh,” she said, forcing her face into a neutral expression so as not to burst out laughing again. “That’s really weird.” Her voice almost cracked, and she forced herself to take a few deep breaths to calm down.

“Anyway,” said Beau, apparently completely oblivious to Jester’s internal struggle. “’Night.”

“Good night,” said Jester carefully. “Good night, Fjord.”

Fjord nodded slightly, still bleary-eyed as he shook himself awake.

“Good night, Caleb,” she added.

“Sweet dreams,” he said innocently as she rolled over. She wanted to  _scream._

Lying there, in the low light of the Hut, she tried closing her eyes, but on the inside she still felt jittery, restless. Caleb was so _funny_. She knew that of course. In a dry sort of way, when he wanted to be. She just wished he wanted to be more often. It must be so  _miserable_ , looking over your shoulder every waking moment, terrified of being discovered. Being caught. Her finger found a loose thread in her blanket and she picked at it absently. It was really nice, seeing him smiling like that.

 _‘Maybe he should read aloud to everyone on the way back to town tomorrow,’_ she thought. _‘Maybe he’d smile again, and I wouldn’t have to be so_ quiet _.’_ But at the same time, a part of her rejected the idea. Part of the fun  _was_  the keeping quiet, the risk of discovery, and besides, what if the others thought it was weird? It  _was_  a little weird, when she thought about it. The cleric and the wizard, bonding over trashy porn in the dead of night. It was a side of him that she didn’t see very often, though, if at all, and it was  _nice_. Nott might think it was fun, and Beau, probably, and, okay, _maybe_  it would make Fjord laugh once or twice, but Caduceus and Yasha would probably think it was  _really_ weird.

Was it weirder, though,  _not_ telling the others? Maybe, she supposed. And maybe it was selfish of her, but a small part of her wanted to keep it that way; kind of like a secret, just a fun thing between the two of them.

And, really, what was wrong with wanting to keep something to herself? Just a private  _something_  she and Caleb shared. They didn’t have many of those. She rolled over again and drifted.

She wasn’t sure, exactly, when she fell asleep, only that when she did she dreamed ridiculously of giant, veiny dicks shooting fireballs and her own enchanted haversack dripping with unmentionable fluids — and then she wasn’t sleeping anymore, because of the screaming.

She shot up before she realized she was awake, chest heaving with the sudden shock. “Wh-what’s going on?” she said to no-one, mostly because no-one was listening. The screaming had stopped but the echoes had not, and Caleb’s voice rang out faintly through the cavern as formerly sleeping party members snapped to various stages of consciousness, searching for signs of a threat. Because it was Caleb who had been screaming, with his blankets tangled around his knees, fingers strained and digging into the cavern floor, breathing hard.

“Caleb!” shouted Nott. She’d sprung to her feet in a split second, waving her crossbow around wildly. “Caleb, what happened? Are you alright?”

He raked his fingers through his hair, staring at nothing, apparently not listening to her. Even from across the Hut, Jester could see the slick sheen of sweat across his brow, and his skin was pale white. “ _Es war nicht echt_ ,” he was muttering to himself, and his voice was rough and trembling as he rocked slowly where he sat, limbs curling in on themselves like a dying spider. “ _Götter verzeihen mir, es war nicht echt…_ ”

Jester scrambled to her feet and hurried over, kneeling by his side as the rest of them hovered uncertainly. Nott clutched at her arm. “What’s wrong with him?” she demanded. “Caleb, what’s  _wrong_?” She reached out to touch him, to shake him, but he didn’t stop. Didn’t blink.

“ _Sie hat sie getötet_ ,” he rasped at no-one. “ _Wir haben sie alle getötet…_ ” He was staring at his hands, dirty and bloody and shaking, and pressed his nails into his arms, scratching, eyes glazed. “ _Ihr Blut ist an meinen Händen…_ ” Sweat poured down his ashen skin.

“Caleb!” said Jester desperately, and grabbed his face. He didn’t stop rocking, didn’t stop muttering, didn’t stop staring, so she did the first thing she could think of.

She slapped him.

The resounding  _crack_  rang out nearly as loud as the screams in the relative silence and several people winced. Her palm stung from the impact, the mark on his cheek an angry red that honestly might be bad enough to bruise, and she’d  _definitely_  feel bad about that in the morning, but right now all she cared about was that it seemed to have worked. He was still now, blinking slowly. His eyes focused and landed on her. “Jester?” he whispered.

She only realized she was still holding his face when his fingers brushed hers on the way to touch his damaged cheek and she pulled away immediately, pulse hammering uncomfortably hard in her ears. Adrenaline was coursing through her veins. She’d been so  _scared_ , she realized. But he was there, and he was okay. Except his face was  _definitely_  going to bruise. “I’m sorry,” she said automatically.

“You... Blood,” he said faintly. “So much...  _blood_.”

She scrubbed at her face, self-conscious in spite of herself. “We fought dire wolves,” she said. “Remember?”

Nott pushed past her roughly, flinging her arms around him. “Are you alright?” she demanded. “What happened? You scared us half to  _death._ ”

“Yeah, man, are you… like, okay?” said Beau concernedly, hands still clutched defensively around her staff. “No offence, but you look like  _shit._ ”

He didn’t respond immediately, hand rubbing his face as he flexed his jaw experimentally. “ _Scheisse_ ,” he said. “I think you cracked a tooth.” He was still looking at her like she was a ghost.

Jester felt her face heat up, embarrassment finally catching up to her properly. “Yeah, well, you were all  _weird_  and wouldn’t snap out of it,” she said defensively.

She hadn’t noticed Caduceus come to kneel beside her. “Let me get that,” he said, and with a wave of his fingers and a muttered prayer, the flaming imprint of her hand faded from Caleb’s skin in a dull shimmer of divine energy.

Caleb blinked again, suddenly seeming to notice there were other people around — including a goblin clinging to his arm — and flushed, looking ashamed. “ _Danke_ ,” he muttered. “I’m sorry.”

“Bad dream?” said Caduceus gently.

Caleb’s face twitched, fingers digging harder into the meat of his forearms. “ _Ja_ , something like that,” he said.

Fjord let out a low whistle and released the falchion into the ether. “Some dream,” he commented.

“You were  _gone_ , man,” said Beau, laying down her staff. “Completely out of it.”

“You were saying something in Zemnian,” said Nott. She was fussing with his hair, wiping the sweat from his brow. “You sounded so scared… What did you see?”

He flinched as though she, not Jester, had struck him, and shrugged out of her grasp. “It was nothing,” he said roughly. “It wasn’t real.” He swallowed with some difficulty, wrapping his arms even tighter around himself. “It wasn’t _real_ ,” he muttered again.

Fjord and Beau exchanged glances as he shook himself, looking sorrowfully around at all of them. “I am sorry,” he said again. Out of the corner of her eye, Jester saw his fingers picking at one of the exposed scars on his arm. “I did not mean to wake you all.”

There was a scraping noise from behind them as Yasha sheathed the Magician’s Judge. “I know something of bad dreams,” she said quietly. She touched his shoulder gently, once, and turned back to her bedroll.

Jester shifted uncomfortably on her heels, raised her hand to — what? Touch him? Comfort him? Lowered it again. “Well,” she said slowly in the awkward silence. “As long as you’re okay, I guess.”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes, but his gaze flicked up to her face briefly, at least. “I’m sorry to have scared you,” he said again in a low voice. “I am... I am fine now. Thank you, Jester.”

“I’ll take next watch,” said Nott.

“You sure?” said Beau. “We still have a couple hours left—”

“I’ll take it,” repeated Nott firmly.

“I’ll stay up a bit longer too,” said Caduceus. He patted Jester’s arm reassuringly, and she hadn’t realized she’d been shaking until she stopped. “You guys go back to bed. We’re alright here.”

A part of her didn’t want to leave, not when Caleb still looked so pale, and Beau looked nearly as reluctant as she felt, but they backed away slowly under Caduceus’s calm gaze and she had no choice but to turn back and crawl to bed again. She glanced over her shoulder as her companions shuffled back to their own bedrolls; at Caduceus sitting cross-legged on the ground, at Nott fussing and fretting over Caleb, ignoring his protests and tucking him in like a child. He looked so  _haunted_  now, so pale and sweaty and still afraid, even as his breathing had evened out and whatever horrors he’d seen been proven imaginary. She caught the slight shaking of his hands as he tried to fend off Nott’s mothering, and her heart twisted inside her.

Gone was the Caleb of a scant few hours ago, the one who laughed with her about love-wands and bosoms, and in his place was — and here her chest  _ached_  again — the Caleb of so many months ago. The one who never smiled, who avoided questions and eyes and rubbed so much dirt and grime on himself to avoid recognition she’d thought he was a brunette for the first two weeks of knowing him.

The Caleb they had first met in Trostenwald the night of the carnival.

The thought almost made her want to cry.

She stared up at the ceiling, twisting and turning for the longest time, even as the rest of the party settled into their bedrolls and sleep picked them off one by one. She caught herself glancing over at Caduceus’s form more than once, the only one of the trio visible past the sleeping bodies surrounding her, but that couldn’t tell her if Caleb had calmed down. She eventually had to roll over, so she had nothing to look at but the rocky walls surrounding them. That helped, but didn’t stop her mind from racing.

What had he seen that was so terrible? A part of her wanted to ask — it wasn’t  _healthy_ , keeping things locked up inside your head, it  _couldn’t_  be — but she didn’t want to pry, either. Whatever it was had to have been horrible beyond description, anyway; what else could have made him scream like that? Was it a monster? A memory? He was so vague about his past, but they’d all seen his arms. Seen the scars. He’d told them about Trent. Maybe there were horrors in his past he had shoved down so far they only resurfaced in dreams?

She wished she could have understood him as he babbled in his native tongue. Wished she could have said something to comfort him. Done something. She hated seeing him like that.

 _‘Traveler,’_  she prayed silently,  _‘I know he’s not a worshipper — not_ yet _, anyway, I know, I’m still working on it — but Caleb’s my friend and he’s really hurting right now, and it would really mean a lot if you could… I don’t know. Could you help him? I think he needs it, like, a_ lot _of it, but I don’t think he’d ask for it and I don’t know what to do.’_

Her deity was silent.

She couldn’t fall asleep again for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (a formal apology to germans as a whole.)
> 
> "syd," you might be asking, "what is this, some sort of sick april fool's joke? i thought you wrote about over-dramatic french teenagers and cartoons nobody watches anymore. why are you coming out of a 6 month hiatus to post about a sad trash wizard and a little blue cleric who defaces other people's temples with magic dicks? how does this connect to a song from a musical based on the 1980s cult classic about school shooters? and how long is this gonna take? are we going to have another TPoY on our hands? what about the first one, anyway??"
> 
> all excellent questions. please direct these and all related inquiries to my publicist, to be answered never, because i don't have one.
> 
> i would also like to take a moment to briefly blame [expellialbus](http://expellialbus.tumblr.com/) for whatever this ends up becoming, because sometimes friends can act as one's impulse control and whatever he is is the direct opposite of that.
> 
> tags to be added as i think of them.
> 
> EDIT: minor word changes. posted on tumblr [here.](https://ladywritesthings.tumblr.com/post/183872191348/i-was-meant-to-be-yours-ch1/)
> 
>  
> 
> [main.](http://ladyofpurple.tumblr.com/)  
> [writing blog.](http://ladywritesthings.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Mighty Nein are worried and Jester tries to help.

Caleb didn’t _scream_.

That was the root of it, she realized. Honestly, he hardly even shouted, now that she thought about it, not _really_. And to have such a heart-wrenching sound come out of him like that, a primal, guttural _scream_ of fear and grief in the dead of night…

Well. It was enough to put them all on edge.

The ride back to town the next morning was mostly quiet. Travel by moorbounder wasn’t exactly conducive to conversation, but she had a feeling nobody really would have had much to say today anyway. Nobody had voiced their concerns aloud since last night, but there seemed to be a sort of unspoken agreement to just… keep an eye out. Watch him. Make sure he was okay, she supposed. And that suited her fine, honestly. Traveler knew she had trouble thinking of anything else.

Nott sat sandwiched between him and Beau on Jannik’s back, her tiny arms barely long enough to fully wrap around even his thin waist. She’d been practically glued to his side since the… incident. She’d watched him like a hawk all night, and when Jester had awoken next morning, joints stiff and head throbbing from the restless evening, she’d been in exactly the same spot Jester had left her. Crossbow in hand, hunched protectively over his body, keeping her silent vigil even as Caduceus had seemed to doze where he sat.

If she was being honest with herself, there was a part of Jester — a very small part, but a part nonetheless — that briefly regretted, as they divided themselves among their mounts in preparation for the trek, bonding herself to Yarnball. She barely even noticed Fjord’s grip on her waist as he clung unsteadily to the moorbounder behind her, when normally the contact would thrill her to bits. Being its master meant it would only listen to her, after all, and that meant she had to steer it, guide it, dissuade it from eating their companions. It meant she couldn’t ride with Caleb instead.

Being a healer was _very_ inconvenient sometimes, she decided. Every part of her was itching to talk to him — not interrogate, just _talk_ , honestly — to make sure he was okay, _really_ okay after what happened. Healing was more than poultices and potions and magic, after all. He _looked_ okay now, if a little tired, but you never really knew about these things until you talked to somebody. And yeah, sure, they were heading back to town, she could wait a few more hours at least, but it was still _hard_. At least Beau seemed to have the same idea she did, and something had seemed to pass between them as Jester had hesitated before mounting Yarnball that morning; a subtle nod, a casual, “Hey, Caleb, mind if I hitch a ride with you today?” At least she stuck close by when Jester couldn’t. At least Nott was there. At least he wasn’t alone.

 _‘And anyway,’_ it occurred to her dully, swaying in time to the moorbounder’s strides beneath her, _‘who says he’d even want to talk about it? Especially with me, even if I_ am _the best at healing.’_

No, if anyone was going to be the first to get anything out of him, it would be Nott. And that was fine. Fair, even. She’d known him the longest. He trusted her the most. He needed someone he could trust right now.

They arrived back to town as dusk tinged the horizon, painting the stone buildings in dusty blues and purples as the sunset faded into night. The orcish tavern owner who had sent them on their original outing gave an approving _harrumph_ when they presented the scavenged pelts and severed ears, as requested. “Not bad for a bunch of outsiders,” he grumbled begrudgingly. “And with a buncha humans to boot!” He shook his head wonderingly, as if this was finally proof he’d seen everything, and agreed to give them their rooms for the night at a discount.

Beau and Fjord went to order drinks for the group as the rest of them secured a table in the back of the surprisingly busy tavern. But even now, with tankards in hand and the sounds of a dozen different conversations mingling and washing over them to form a hazy, amorphous sort of white noise she found a comforting change from the utter silence from the rest of the day, none of them seemed to have much to say.

Caleb looked up in vague surprise as Beau slid the ale in front of him. “Oh,” he said. “Thank you, Beauregard, but you didn’t have to…” He sounded a thousand miles away.

“You don’t want it?” She seemed almost irritated.

“You can take it,” he offered. “Or someone else, I suppose, if you want it. I’m not very thirsty.”

“You’ve barely had anything to eat or drink all day,” said Nott. “You should take it. I’ll go order some food, too—”

“No, really, I’m _fine_.” He gestured vaguely, as though he could simply wave her concern away.

“You’re not, though,” said Beau.

They turned to look at her and her lips were pressed into a thin line, staring into the depths of her tankard. When she looked up her eyes were hard, boring into Caleb’s fiercely. “You’re _not_ fine,” she repeated harshly. “Stop pretending you are.”

“Beauregard—”

“No, no, don’t you _‘Beauregard’_ me,” she said. “Something _happened_ last night. We all saw it. We saw _you_. Tell us what happened, don’t tell us what happened, but don’t give me that _bullshit_. You’re not _fine_.”

Caleb stared wordlessly at his ale, a fingernail digging absently into the scarred wood of the table.

“What… happened, Caleb?” ventured Jester softly, when nobody said anything.

He withdrew his hand, still contemplating the inside of his tankard. “Nothing,” he said eventually. “It was nothing.”

“It wasn’t _nothing_ —”

“It was a _dream_ ,” he said. “A bad dream, that is all. Honestly, you are making it out to be much worse than it was.” His voice was quiet, calm, even, but she wasn’t the only one who noticed the twitch under his eye as his arms inched a little closer around himself. He was lying.

“Tell us about it, then.” Fjord’s voice was reasonable, but the underlying challenge was very clear.

“There’s nothing to tell. It was a dream.”

“Yeah?” He leaned over the table, eyes boring into Caleb even as the wizard carefully avoided his gaze. “So were mine.”

At that Caleb’s eyes finally flicked up, a hard expression on his face. “That is different,” he said.

“Maybe, yeah,” Fjord shrugged. “But I still tell y’all about ‘em. If it’s just a dream, what’s the harm?”

“Let us help you,” said Nott. She put a small hand on his shoulder, expression pleading. “We _want_ to help you.”

“Talking might make you feel better, you know,” offered Jester gently.

He shook off Nott’s hand, grabbed his tankard, and drained the thing in one go, drops of ale slopping messily down his chin. When he finished he scrubbed his face roughly with a ratty coat sleeve, ignoring their stares. “I’m going to go wash up,” he muttered, and before anyone could say anything he was gone, vanishing in the crowd of the tavern’s rowdy clientele.

Nott sprang up immediately to follow him, but was stopped by Caduceus, his giant hand on her tiny shoulder too strong a grip to break. “Leave him,” he said. “I think he wants to be alone right now.”

“But he _shouldn’t_ be,” she protested.

“Maybe,” he said, shrugging. “But maybe he _needs_ to be. He’ll come back.” He let go of her when she finally sagged, however reluctantly, back into her seat. “And when he does,” he added after a moment, thoughtfully twisting his mug of milk in place on the table, “maybe lay off him for a while. He’ll talk when he’s ready.”

Nott looked like she wanted to protest, couldn’t find the words, and settled for staring hopelessly at her drink. Jester knew exactly how she felt.

Fjord shook his head and took a large swig of ale. “What do you suppose he saw?” he said to nobody in particular.

“I don’t know, but it must have been pretty fuckin’ bad.” Beau chewed her lip absently, her fingers doing a nervous sort of tap-dance on her mug. “I’ve never seen him like that.” She shook herself and drained the last dregs of her ale, rearranging her expression into her customary standoffish glare, though it didn’t quite mask the worry creasing her brow. “He didn’t have to be such an asshole about it, though,” she said gruffly. “Anyone want a refill?”

Nobody had much to say after that. As they nursed their drinks in silence, Jester found her thoughts gradually drift back to last night — not to the screaming, not to the fear and the shaking and the _crack_ of her palm against his face, she _refused_ to think about that right now — but earlier, to the cramp in her stomach as she laughed, to the playful glint in his eyes as he said the most _filthy_ things with a calm expression, to the pink of his cheeks when she told him he deserved to be happy.

She wanted to make him happy again. She just wished she knew how.

“He’s been gone an awfully long time.” A voice cut through her thoughts and she looked up to see Nott’s long ears twitching nervously, her mug still mostly full.

“He probably went to bed,” said Beau dully.

“To get away from the _inquisition_.”

“Oh, like you tried _so_ _hard_ to stop me.”

“I’ll go look for him,” said Jester loudly over their bickering.

“I’ll come too,” said Nott instantly.

“I think one person’s more than enough right now,” said Caduceus diplomatically. “Any more might be… overwhelming, I think.”

“Then I’ll go instead,” she argued.

“No, let Jester do it,” said Fjord. “You’ve been basically stapled to his ass since last night, anyway. A change of pace might be nice.”

“Fuck you, Fjord.”

Jester left them to their squabbling and wove her way around drunken patrons back in the direction of the bar. It occurred to her, a little late, perhaps, that she hadn’t actually seen where he’d disappeared to. Which rooms did they rent, anyway? Or maybe he went outside? She paused at the base of the stairs, hesitating, before beginning to trudge up to the second floor with a small sigh, the rickety wood groaning under each step. She could always come back down if she didn’t find him.

The landing opened onto a hallway lined with doors, all of them closed, and her heart sank. The hall was quiet, the chattering and laughter from the main hall surprisingly muffled once she left the stairs. The doors were numbered, at least; crookedly, with peeling paint, but at least she wouldn’t have to guess which room was which. _‘Three, five, seven,’_ she remembered, thinking hard. At least, she _hoped_ that was right, and she wasn’t confusing the arrangement with some previous tavern stay. That could make for some awkward conversations with whoever’s sleep she might disturb if she was wrong.

The first two doors were a bust, but the third was, as they say, the charm. At the rap of her knuckles she heard a splash and some shuffling, then silence. “Caleb?” she called softly. “Caleb, is that you?”

Silence.

She cleared her throat awkwardly and knocked again. “Caleb, are you in there? It’s me, Jester.” She paused. There was still no answer, so she tried a different tack. “I know you’re in there, I can _hear_ you,” she said sternly. “I’ll break down the door if you don’t answer me. I can _do_ that, you know, I’m _really_ strong.”

Finally, a sigh. “Come in, Jester,” came his resigned voice.

He was standing over a tiny basin in the corner, coat and scarf and spellbooks in a heap on the bed, the sleeves of his shirt pushed up past his elbows as he methodically scrubbed at his arms. She could see the pale lines of dozens upon dozens of scars criss-crossing the skin, moving subtly over the tendons as he worked. He didn’t look up when she opened the door.

“I said you could come in,” he said after a moment, and Jester realized she’d just been standing in the doorframe for a _bit_ too long. She scurried inside, shutting the door behind her with a muted _click_.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” It came out harshly and he paused for a moment, sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She crossed the room hesitantly, peering over his shoulder into the basin. The water was grimy with dirt and blood. “Have you… been doing this the _whole_ time you’ve been up here?” she asked.

He glanced at her and looked away just as quickly, resuming his work. “The blood,” he said. “It’s… persistent.” His arms were red, the skin rubbed raw from the scrubbing.

“You look pretty clean to me,” she said. “Your arms do, anyway.” Her gaze traveled up and over him, from his raw arms and patchy shirt to the dirt still smeared across his face.

He didn’t answer.

For a moment she let him continue, wondering if he’d stop on his own, whether her presence would affect this strange mood he was in, but it seemed like he’d almost entirely forgotten her, singularly focused on the task of washing away the blood that was no longer there. “Caleb,” she said.

When he didn’t respond again she reached up and touched his arm, just grazed it, really, and he _jumped_ at the contact, a massive, full-body flinch, but he stopped scrubbing, at least.

“Here,” she said gently. “Your fingers are all wrinkly. Let me help.”

He didn’t respond, didn’t move, but he didn’t pull away either. He simply _let_ her, let her pull his hands out of the water, let her take the basin and toss its contents out the window.

“It’s too dirty to be useful anymore, anyway,” she said conversationally, replacing the bowl on its stand. With a wave of her hand and a muttered prayer, a thin stream of water appeared out of nowhere, trickling musically into the warped metal. “There,” she said as the stream stopped, the bowl full again. “Much better.”

She watched him out of the corner of her eye while she washed her own hands, but he hadn’t moved. He was just watching her as the blood slowly disappeared from her arms, and then her face, appearing lost in thought. It would have been almost unsettling, if his expression hadn’t been so _sad_.

That wouldn’t do at all. “Do you have a towel or something?” she said.

He pointed wordlessly to another tiny table in the corner, where a worn but clean rag lay neatly folded. She dried her hands and face, then assumed her best no-nonsense expression as she marched back to the basin, towel in hand. “Sit,” she commanded.

He stared at her blankly.

“ _Sit_ ,” she said again, picking up the bowl.

He blinked at her, realization dawning, and rolled his eyes a little. “Jester—”

“Nope, I don’t want to hear it. Now _sit_.”

“Jester, I am perfectly capable of washing my own face.”

She put the fist not holding the bowl on her hip, fixing him with her sternest _look_. “But instead you’ve been up here for half an hour scrubbing the skin off your arms.”

“Twenty-three minutes.”

She glared at him. “ _Sit_.”

He rolled his eyes again but complied, perching stiffly on the edge of the bed. At her raised eyebrow he sighed, shoving the heap of his things back and settled into a more natural, comfortable position. “Satisfied?” he said, but there was no gruffness in his voice, just resignation.

At least he was arguing with her, which was a definite improvement. “Extremely.” She settled next to him, curling a leg under her so she could perch the bowl on her knee.

He quirked an eyebrow at it. “That looks… precarious,” he said.

“Hush.” She wet an unused corner of the rag in the basin, squeezing it out as much as she could before dabbing it on his face.

He huffed uncomfortably. “You know, you really don’t have to—” he began.

She hushed him again. “I’m the healer here, remember?” she said. “You are my patient now, so let me heal.”

 _There_ , a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. “This is healing to you?”

“You tell me, I’m not the one being healed.”

“I don’t _feel_ very healed.”

“Well, I’m not done yet,” she said primly. “Geeze, Caleb, give it a minute.”

A slight exhalation of air, one that could almost be mistaken for a breathy chuckle. Victory.

She worked in silence for a while, pausing periodically to wet the rag again as gradually the grime and flecks of blood gave way to pinkened skin and reddish stubble. He let her tilt his head this way and that, moving to the slightest touch of her fingers on his chin, still not happy with the arrangement, but at least not actively resisting it either.

“How’s your cheek?” she asked eventually.

He reached up to touch it instinctively. “It’s fine,” he said. “Caduceus healed it quite well.” His gaze flicked to hers and stuttered away again. “You’ve got quite an arm on you, you know.”

She tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it. Not when she remembered why she’d slapped him in the first place. “I’m sorry about that, by the way,” she said softly. “I know I already apologized, but… I hit you, like, _super_ -hard.”

He waved her concern away. “I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re not, though.” The hand holding the rag faltered. “Beau was right, you don’t have to keep pretending.” His face turned blank as she resumed her ministrations, biting her lip absently. “You don’t have to talk to me, or Beau, or Fjord, but you should talk to _someone_. Or at least let someone be there while you _don’t_ talk. Nott’s really worried about you.” She paused again. “We all are. You know that, don’t you? We all care about you. We want you to be okay.”

He’d gone back to not looking at her again and she sighed softly, feeling her heart sink. It was as if he was a book and the cover had just slammed shut on her fingers. She finished wiping the last smudge of dirt from his nose and gathered up her things, replacing them neatly on the end table. She was almost at the door when he finally spoke.

“You were dead,” he said.

She turned slowly on her heel. “What?”

“You were dead,” he repeated. “All of you, bloody and burned and torn apart and _dead_ on the ground.” He looked up at her, his eyes tired and haunted and oh, so _sad_ again. “And I was the one who killed you.”

Her heart was hammering in her chest and she swallowed dryly as she made her way back to the bed, sitting down as close to him as she dared. As close as she thought he would let her. “Oh, Caleb,” she whispered.

“I had killed you,” he continued in that flat, sad voice, “and then I woke up and I was covered in blood, and then I saw you, and _you_ were covered in blood, and…” He looked down again, at his hands, still red and raw from scrubbing away the remains of the dire wolves from his skin, and shrugged lopsidedly.

“Oh, Caleb, that’s _awful_.” No wonder he had looked at her like _that_ when she snapped him out of it, like she was a ghost. She must have looked exactly like his nightmare. Her heart twisted.

“It — it wasn’t just the blood,” he admitted haltingly. He leaned forward, resting his head between steepled fingers, eyes staring at nothing as she sat beside him, unsure of what to do with herself. “It felt so… _real_ , like it wasn’t just a dream. I — I could _feel_ it. Feel the fire. Feel the — the bones—” His fingers twitched, his face twisting into a grimace, “— _your_ bones snapping. _Scheisse_ , I snapped your neck and tore out your throat and I _felt_ it.” He swallowed harshly, Adam’s apple bobbing. “ _Bitte verzeih mir_ , I _wanted_ to do it.”

She opened her mouth, meaning to comfort him, to say _something_ , anything at all, but her mouth was dry and the words wouldn’t come. She lifted a hand to touch him instead, put a hand on his shoulder, and realized she was shaking. His skin, under the thin cotton shirt, when her trembling hand finally came to rest on it, was cold. “Caleb,” she finally managed.

He looked at her then, the dark circles under his now slightly red-rimmed eyes standing out in harsh contrast to the paleness of his skin. “I wanted to hurt you,” he said, and his voice cracked a little.

She didn’t think about it, didn’t even think to ask until her arms were already around him, looped around his neck and pulling him close, as though holding him could even _remotely_  help the pain he was feeling inside. He stiffened at the contact, inhaling sharply, and she thought wildly for a moment that this was a terrible idea, that of course Caleb wouldn’t want a _hug_ , certainly not _now_ , that he would push her off and run away and regret telling her everything, regret baring the darkest parts of himself — but as she simply held him, stroked his hair, murmured nonsense that she hoped sounded comforting, he slowly allowed himself to sink his head to press into her shoulder, to twist his body so he could wrap one of his own arms around her in kind. He didn’t cry, just pulled her closer, fingers digging into her back almost hard enough to hurt, taking long, shaking breaths with his face buried in the crook of her neck.

She didn’t pull away until he did, and even then she didn’t let go of him completely. She simply took his face in her hands, rubbing tiny circles on his cheeks with her thumbs, just like her Mama did to her when she was small. It always comforted her then. She hoped it helped him now. “It wasn’t real,” she assured him. “Hey, Caleb, _look_ at me.” He opened his eyes slowly, reluctantly, and she met his gaze with all the intensity she could muster. “It was a _dream_ , okay? It wasn’t _real_ , and it wasn’t _you_. You don’t want to hurt me in real life, do you?”

He looked horrified. “No.”

“You don’t want to rip out my organs and paint the walls with my blood, do you?”

“Jester—”

He tried to wrestle out of her grasp but she held fast, not breaking eye contact. “ _Do you_?” she prompted.

His face crumpled again. “Of course I don’t,” he said hoarsely. “I would never want to hurt you, Blueberry.”

There was a slight flutter somewhere deep within her at the rare endearment. She was getting through to him. “Do you want to kill Nott? Or Caduceus?”

“No!”

“What about Yasha? Fjord?”

“ _Jester_ —”

“Then whatever happened in the dream,” she said, cutting him off, “wasn’t _you_. Okay?”

“I—”

“You understand that, don’t you? I need you to understand that.” She tilted his face up towards hers again as he tried to look away, resuming the soft little circles on his cheeks, and he leaned into her touch with a shaky, resigned sort of sigh. “Please,” she said quietly. “Please tell me you understand, Caleb. That. Wasn’t. _You_.”

His hand reached up, pressing one of hers harder into his cheek, in the same place she had slapped him just a day before, and he hadn’t looked away. “I understand,” he whispered, and she hoped he really did.

She smiled then, patted his face gently and tried to release it, but his hand still pressed her palm to his cheek just a second longer than she meant it to. He was warmer now, skin not quite so bloodless as it was before, and his gaze was softer now, not quite so sad anymore, and — gosh, in this light his eyes were _weirdly_ blue. And there was that odd _tightness_ in her chest again.

“You,” she said, swallowing thickly, “need a distraction.”

“Oh?”

She nodded gravely. “Yes, very badly.”

His face twitched, like he was trying to smile for her, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well…” She tore her eyes away from his with some difficulty and stared at the ceiling, which had a crack in it. Her tail swished thoughtfully behind her. “You could always read to me,” she suggested.

There was a pause in which he simply _looked_ at her, and then he shook his head, chuckling softly under his breath. “You want me to read to you,” he said, “to distract me.”

She grinned at him. “Well, it was _fun_ , wasn’t it?”

“It was, but you don’t think Nott will storm up here any minute and walk in on us reading _porn_ together? What would the others think?”

She waggled her eyebrows in what she hoped was a playful way. “I don’t mind if you don’t,” she said coyly.

He chuckled again, some of that awful tension slowly leaving his posture, and somehow that made _her_ feel lighter, too. “Not tonight, I think,” he said, and, bless him, he sounded almost regretful at turning her down. “I don’t think I feel quite up to the possibility of Nott interrogating me tonight.”

“Sleep, then.” She ignored the tiny grain of something very like disappointment worming its way through her gut. It wasn’t _about_ her tonight. “You could probably use the rest, anyway. No offence, but you look _terrible_.”

Another smile, stronger this time. “Ah, Jester,” he said. “Ever the flatterer.”

She touched his shoulder again, gently, and got to her feet. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said. “Just promise me to leave your arms alone, yeah? There’s no blood on them anymore, remember?”

“I know.”

“And go _straight_ to sleep.”

“I will.”

“And—”

“Jester…”

“Maybe I should stay,” she said in a rush. “You know, so you don’t have to fall asleep alone. When I used to have nightmares, I used to light lots of candles and make a pillow fort and talk to the Traveler and stuff, but nothing really helped the same as when Mama would come in and stroke my hair and sing lullabies to me until I—”

“You want to stay and sing me lullabies?” He sounded amused, but almost… touched. Maybe nobody had ever sung lullabies to him before. Now there was a sad thought.

“If — if you want me to,” she said, feeling almost shy now. It sounded stupid when he said it like _that_. “It _was_ a very scary dream you had. I wouldn’t want to face that sort of thing by myself.”

“Ah… hmm,” he said, and stopped. “You are — that’s very kind of you,” he began again. “But I’m sure I can manage. And I’m sure Nott will be up here shortly, looking for us. I won’t be alone for long. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Oh, okay,” she said, feeling awkward now. “Well, um, good night, then, I guess.”

“Jester.” His hand caught her wrist before she could move away and suddenly he was standing, towering over her and something in her… _stopped_ for a moment as he looked down on her, with those weirdly blue eyes. “I — thank you,” he said softly. “Really. For everything.”

“Oh,” she said, and though she tried to sound nonchalant it just came out all _breathy_ for some reason. “It was nothing. I _am_ the best healer, after all.”

He smiled. “It wasn’t _nothing_ , but… yes, you are a very good healer.” His thumb brushed across the back of her hand and that _thing_ inside her stuttered again because she hadn’t realized he was still touching her. And his other hand went to her face and brushed against her cheek in a gentle imitation of the circles she'd traced on his own skin and for a moment she forgot how to breathe.

“Thank you,” he said again, very quietly, and then he released his hold on her and she found herself very warm and simultaneously unbearably cold in the spots where his fingers used to be.

“No problem,” she said lamely.

He turned back to the bed and began shuffling his things away, and she tried to remember how to walk again. Maybe she was coming down with something; this was the second day in a row where she’d gone all lightheaded for no reason. She took one, two, three steps towards the door and paused again, hesitating just out of arm’s reach of the door. “Hey, Caleb?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you want me to send up Nott when I get back downstairs?”

He folded his coat slowly, neatly, and laid it over the end of the bed. “I’m sure she’ll come up the second she sees you, regardless of what you say,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she were waiting just outside the door this whole time, just listening and waiting for you to leave.”

She laughed softly. “I guess you’re right,” she said, and hesitated again. “Caleb?”

He folded his scarf with equal care, laying it on top of the coat. “Yes, Jester?”

“What do you want me to tell the others?”

He paused, spellbooks in hand. “What do you mean?”

She fidgeted with the holy symbol dangling from her belt. “Well, they know I came up to talk to you, and they’re worried about you, and I’ve been gone a long time. They’re going to ask questions. So, like, what should I tell them? If they ask.”

He didn’t answer her immediately, rearranging the books on top of his scarf and coat, pulling down the sleeves of his shirt to hide the scars. “You could tell them I went to bed,” he said slowly. “That isn’t a lie. And it’s not exactly difficult to infer we had a conversation.”

“Right.”

“I would prefer…” He trailed off, hesitated, tried again. “It would be nice if you could avoid mentioning…”

Her eyes went wide. “Of course!” she exclaimed. “Oh, gosh, I would _never_ , of _course_ I wouldn’t.”

He deflated, visibly relieved. “I… That… Good. That’s good.” He offered her another tired smile, and this time his eyes crinkled just that little bit at the corners and she felt suddenly lighter again. “Thank you, Jester.”

She returned his smile as warmly as she could. “Good night, Caleb,” she said, and closed the door softly behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "sydney," i told myself while rereading this chapter for the 57th time under the guise of """editing""", "what the hell even is this? you started off so strong and now look at this. it's self-indulgent garbage, is what it is."
> 
> "sydney," i replied kindly to myself, scrolling back up to reread my own fic for the 58th time, "fuck off."
> 
> posted on tumblr [here.](https://ladywritesthings.tumblr.com/post/183914059323/i-was-meant-to-be-yours-ch2/)
> 
>  
> 
> [main.](http://ladyofpurple.tumblr.com/)  
> [writing blog.](http://ladywritesthings.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a conversation is not had.

Caleb seemed better the next day, Jester thought pleasantly. And the next day, and the one after that. She still kept an eye on him — it was her _job_ , after all — sneaking glances at him out of the corners of her eyes when he wasn’t looking, as he slowly seemed to settle down over the long days and cool nights, traveling aimlessly across the Xhorhasian wastes. It probably didn’t hurt that she had, despite some initial resistance and a few raised eyebrows, managed to convince the rest of the Nein that he just needed some space. Caduceus helped, even without prompting. And that appeared to do the trick; it seemed the sleep and their talk had helped him in some small way, and by the end of the week, he seemed very nearly back to normal.

 _‘Well, of_ course _he is,’_ she told herself with a satisfactory nod astride Yarnball. _‘I am a_ very _good healer, after all.’_

Nott in particular had needed some convincing to refrain from asking him too many questions, but she eventually relented, contenting herself with acting as his personal guard instead. She watched him closely, but less and less as the days progressed, and even pulled Jester aside one evening as they set up camp for the night.

“Thank you,” she said in a low voice.

“For what?” said Jester distractedly, sorting through her paints for the perfect shade of green.

“For… you know.” She gestured vaguely in Caleb’s direction, and Jester looked up to see him and Beau, deep in conversation. As they watched, she smacked him in the arm, laughing loudly as he smiled that small smile of his in return. “I don’t know what happened the other day,” Nott said, “when you went up to check on him. He still won’t tell me what he saw in that nightmare he had. But he told me you talked to him, and whatever you said _helped_. So thank you.” She squeezed Jester’s hand and Jester squeezed back.

“Of course, Nott,” she beamed.

“I won’t ask you what you talked about, I know it’s not your place to say, but…” Nott leaned in a little closer, a small worried crease across her brow as she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Is he… alright? Like _really_?”

Jester looked back at Caleb, at his relaxed frame and calm face contoured in firelight, and smiled. “I think he is,” she said, and deep down she knew she was right.

Leaving Yeza behind had been hard — even despite the guards they had hired to get him safely back to Felderwin, the money and instructions on retrieving the enchanted cart from the tavern owner to get him the rest of the way to Alfield, and the messages Jester relayed from casting Sending every night she could — and leaving him without having a clear goal in mind had been harder. That had been almost a month ago by now, maybe longer. Perhaps that was why she’d been so attached to Caleb recently. Not that that protective instinct hadn’t been justified, of course. But being able to give her some peace of mind in addition to calming Caleb down was two wins for the price of one in Jester’s book.

That night the clerics took first watch, Caduceus amusing himself by flipping through the cookbook she’d gotten him. She sat at the edge of the bubble, arms curled up around her knees as she watched the remains of their campfire slowly turn to ash. They didn’t really _need_ watches anymore, hadn’t for a while; not since Caleb had learned to form the Tiny Hut, to be honest. But it was a comforting routine — sometimes things _happened_ , after all — and sometimes it was just _nice_ to enjoy the quiet on a night like tonight. It wasn’t entirely unlike being alone, but being alone surrounded by people was vastly superior to being alone without them.

Well, besides the Traveler, of course, but he was _always_ there, so it didn’t really count.

So she relished the silence as it was, the rustling of pages, the soft wind through the gnarled trees around them. Picking up a broken twig, she traced a pattern absently in the soft dirt beneath her as the glowing embers gently winked out one by one. She felt calm, or as calm as she could be as the uncertainty of their future stretched out before them. Apart from agreeing to search for the remaining Luxon Beacon and Caduceus’s vague search for some sort of divine Kiln, they were directionless.

They had briefly entertained the idea of swinging down south, down to where Yasha was from, but when she pointed out that she not only hadn’t received any proper direction from her Stormlord, but would also be killed on sight by her tribe, the idea was squashed. It was also decided that it would be best to avoid the Empire for the time being — Caleb hadn’t quite perfected his vaguely-referenced teleportation spell yet, the one he’d promised would take her back to her mother, and the last thing they needed was to be connected to the Dynasty after essentially committing treason. A ragtag group of mercenaries “returning” from Xhorhas? They’d be hunted for sport by overeager Crownsguard if they got within five miles of the border.

And so they wandered, picking up odd jobs in whatever tiny towns they came across as they… well, _explored_ was as good a term as any for what they were doing.

Tonight’s resting place was what could loosely be described as a forest, if one had never seen a real one before. The trees were tall and looming, but twisted and dead and scattered rather sparsely over the landscape; the only reason she couldn’t dismiss this patch of the countryside as simply more scrubland was the fact that there were trees around them in the first place, more than she’d seen clustered together in days now, and the trend seemed to stretch on for another mile, at least. She felt a little bad for Caduceus, honestly — to be away from home for so long, and not even be surrounded by a proper forest for days on end — but perhaps that was why he’d chosen to stay up with her tonight. The sound of the dry branches scraping together as the trees swayed in the faint breeze must be nicer than no trees at all. Even if it was a little creepy.

She dug through her haversack and produced the last of the pastries she’d squirreled away before they’d left the grumpy orc’s tavern: two crumbling bear claws and one jelly doughnut, lightly squished. The doughnut looked a bit iffy, the bits of jelly now leaking out one side having gone a funny color, but the bear claws were alright, if a little stale. She chewed slowly as she watched a log on the ash pile collapse on itself. It wasn’t fresh, or as good as the ones in Nicodranas — very few pastries were, of course, so she wouldn’t hold that against it — but the sweetness was a comfort.

Caduceus didn’t want the other one. She debated with herself a long time on what to do with it; should she wait a while to eat it? They still had another hour or so on their watch — she’d probably want a snack later. Or perhaps whoever traded off for next watch would want a snack. Or could she get away with saving it in the haversack for tomorrow? Surely it would last another day. But, then again, it was already in her hand, and the first one _had_ been pretty nice…

“ _Warte, geh nicht_!” The cry was quiet but sharp, a sudden, gutteral intake of breath in the still night air. She spun around for the source of it, hand going instinctively to her belt, though whether to her holy symbol or her handaxe was a bit of a toss-up. Caduceus’s staff was glowing. But all they saw was Caleb, sitting up ramrod straight with his blankets in a heap around his knees, breathing hard.

Oh dear. “Caleb?” she said warily.

His gaze snapped to hers immediately. “Jester…?” His hands, trembling slightly, ran over his face as he tried to calm his breathing. “I… ah,” he said, and stopped.

Jester and Caduceus exchanged glances as they slowly lowered their defenses. “Another bad dream?” ventured Caduceus gently.

“Ah, hmm. _Scheisse_.” He cleared his throat, but his voice was still hoarse when he said, “Sort of, I suppose.”

At least he hadn’t screamed this time. And at least he seemed, at least mostly, aware of his surroundings. His exclamation had been loud to her ears — quiet as the night around them was — but not, apparently, enough to wake their sleeping friends. Small blessings, she supposed. “Are you… okay?” asked Jester.

He didn’t answer immediately.

Her first instinct was to rush over to him — she was a _healer_ , after all, and she remembered how badly he’d needed healing last time — but he didn’t seem to be in any immediate distress, and Caduceus was closer anyway. So she hovered where she crouched, feeling suddenly awkward and a little useless.

“I… think so,” he said eventually. He still looked kind of shaken, an expression she couldn’t quite place on his face, but his breathing had slowed. “My apologies, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s okay,” said Caduceus, laying his staff down gently. “Keeps the blood pumping, I guess.”

“At least you were quiet about it.” She meant it to be a joke of some kind, something to lighten the strange mood, but Caleb didn’t respond and she felt the lame attempt at a smile wither and die on her face. She settled back into a sitting position, for lack of anything else to do, and fiddled with the little twig she’d discarded. “Do you… want to talk about it?” she said finally in a low voice.

She noticed his eyes flick over to Caduceus quickly before he swallowed again. “I don’t — hmm.” He swallowed again, running a hand absently through his messy hair. “Perhaps — no, perhaps not.”

“If you don’t want to go to sleep again right away, you can come sit next to me,” she offered. “It’s warmer over here. Closer to the fire. You look kinda cold.” It wasn’t, he didn’t, and the fire was mostly out anyway, but Caduceus shot her an approving glance as Caleb appeared to mull the suggestion over. Of course he’d noticed Caleb’s hesitation to talk about it with him so close behind. Perceptive bastard.

“ _Ja_ ,” said Caleb eventually. “ _Ja_ , okay.” He slowly pushed off his blankets and shuffled over, folding himself awkwardly into a cross-legged position next to her. They weren’t quite touching, exactly, but there wasn’t much leftover space between the sleeping bodies. Caduceus went back to his book with one final approving nod as she and Caleb sat in silence for a while, shoulder to shoulder, gazing into the dying embers. Well, _he_ was, anyway. Jester was looking at _him_ , as surreptitiously as she could out of the corner of her eye.

He seemed distracted, or lost in thought, but he didn’t look _haunted_. Or scared. Just… a little out of it. A little lost.

She wanted to say something, open her mouth and make him laugh, or comfort him, or distract him somehow from _his_ distraction, but she felt that anything she’d come up with would fall flat, or be wrong somehow. So she simply sat there with him, with her arms wrapped around her knees again, just sitting and waiting in the awkward silence. Well, awkward for _her_. Or rather, it felt like it _should_ be awkward. She wasn’t quite sure he was aware enough of his surroundings to be aware of the quality of the silence, awkward or otherwise.

“It wasn’t _bad_ , exactly,” he said finally.

She looked at him fully this time. “Your dream, you mean?” she said in a low voice.

He glanced quickly over his shoulder and she followed his gaze, back to Caduceus. He appeared fully engrossed in his book again, which seemed to satisfy Caleb somewhat, and he relaxed just a little. “It didn’t feel quite like a dream this time either,” he said, turning back to the dying fire. “But not… not the same as last time.”

“What do you mean?”

He hummed noncommittally, perching his chin on steepled fingers as he stared at the remains of their camp with glazed eyes. “I… don’t quite know how to explain it,” he admitted after a moment. “It was… _like_ a dream, but more like a memory, I suppose. And it felt more real than both somehow. I don’t…”

She waited for him to finish his sentence, but he’d lapsed into silence again, staring at the glowing logs as though transfixed. “Do you want to talk about it?” she said eventually, in a voice that was almost a whisper now.

His face twitched a little at the suggestion, but she couldn’t quite tell if it was a good twitch or a bad one. “There isn’t really much to tell,” he said.

She pursed her lips a little against her arm, hugging her knees a little tighter. “You said that last time, too,” she reminded him gently.

“Yes, but…” He paused a moment, shifting in his seat. “Last time,” he began, “I didn’t want to worry you. Or frighten you. This one…” He paused again, swallowed. “It is not the same,” he said.

She traced her nail in the dirt, smudging her earlier squiggles. “Was it a _good_ dream, then?”

This question seemed to stump him, and he was quiet for a long time. “I don’t know,” he said at last.

She picked up the twig again, doodled a frowny face in the dirt. “What was it, then?” she said. “What, did you have a sex dream or something? Is that why you don’t want to tell me about it? ’Cause it would be _weird_?”

The corner of his mouth definitely twitched up at that. “No,” he said. “I did not have a sex dream.”

The frowny face was lopsided, and she brushed it away. “I want to help you,” she said quietly. “I know you don’t like when people help you, but I’m your _friend_ , you know. I want to _try_. But I can’t do that if you won’t talk to me.”

He sighed a little. “It was a memory,” he said, “or something based off a memory, of someone very dear to me a long time ago. It was… bittersweet, I suppose. I haven’t thought about it in a long time.”

He paused again. “…But?” she prompted after a moment.

“But,” he sighed, letting his hands drop into his lap, “it wasn’t particularly noteworthy, as far as dreams go. Only to me.” He glanced at her. “You would be bored by it, I think.”

She huffed, her bangs puffing up a little. “That’s awfully judgy of you,” she said. “How do you know I’d be bored?”

He glanced at her. “Because I _know_ you, Jester,” he said, and he said it kindly, but it felt like a dismissal all the same.

“Is it because there’s people around?”

“Jester,” he said, “there’s nothing to tell.”

He was shutting her out. “Fine, then, don’t tell me,” she frowned against her arm. It was easier to just let it go, but some part of her… _hurt_ , somehow. She’d thought after they’d talked, after she helped him… It had been an intimate moment, a _real_ moment, where he’d been vulnerable and she’d _helped_ him, and — well, she didn’t quite know how to explain it, but she thought they’d _shared_ something. That they were friends, truly friends, in a way they hadn’t quite been before. That he trusted her. He _had_ to know she’d listen to anything that troubled him, even some _boring_ , bittersweet memory-dream intense enough to rouse him from a deep sleep; that’s what friends were for, after all.

Either he was lying, and he _had_ in fact had some sort of raunchy sex dream he was too embarrassed to recount aloud, or he didn’t know her very well at all.

“Where’s Frumpkin?” she asked instead.

He waved a hand vaguely. “Oh, you know,” he said. “Around. I sent him off to keep an eye out.”

“Oh,” she said, and the conversation died again.

The silence was killing her, but any topics she could think of were _wrong_ ; too boring or too lighthearted or not lighthearted enough. It was clear the dreams were off the table, even though his tight-lipped reaction rubbed her the wrong way in more ways than she cared to count, but she couldn’t come up with anything else to say. She felt stuck, almost. She couldn’t bear the quiet, being shut out like this, but she couldn’t just leave him, either. It would be rude, and besides, she didn’t _want_ to. Didn’t want to leave him, leave his side, leave him alone with the thoughts he wouldn’t share.

The fire had long since burned out by now, but he still watched the ashes, apparently lost in thought again. She surveyed him out of the corner of her eye instead, the sharp lines of his jaw and brow casting shadows over his eyes, over the gentle curve of his neck.

“You need a shave,” she commented, a little bluntly. Petulantly.

He blinked in surprise, a hand reaching up reflexively to rub at the scruff on his chin. “Sorry?”

“You need a shave,” she repeated. “Pretty bad, actually. If you care.”

“Ah, I — I suppose I do,” he said haltingly, and looked at her curiously. “I didn’t know _you_ cared.”

“I-I don’t, really,” she said, feeling her ears heat up in spite of herself, and looked away quickly. “I just thought you should know, is all.” He was still _looking_ at her. It was getting embarrassing.

He finally turned back to the fire, still rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose I could have Yasha try again,” he said. “Although having her sword so close to my neck is… disconcerting.”

“You could get Nott to do it,” she suggested, slightly muffled against her arms again. “She has daggers, doesn’t she?”

“Those blunt little things?” He let out a little half-chuckle. “I wouldn’t trust her with those near _anything_.” He glanced at her again. “I didn’t know it bothered you so much.”

“It _doesn’t_ ,” she said hotly. Gods, why was he still _looking_ at her? She didn’t know how or why the conversation had turned into something so excruciating, why she’d brought it up in the first place, but now that it had she wanted to melt away into nothing. “Shave, don’t shave, _Idon’tcareanywayit’sfinewhateverokay_.”

“Oh. I see.”

He was still looking at her, a curious tilt to his head, and he wouldn’t stop looking and she wanted to _die_ , and she just about sagged with relief when Caduceus’s voice floated across the Hut to save her. “Hey, Jester,” he said, “it’s almost time for the shift change. Do you want to wake up Yasha, or should I?”

“ _I’lldoitthanksCaduceus_ ,” she said a little too loudly, shooting to her feet in a cloud of dust. Caleb sneezed in her wake as she hurried away, clutching her haversack like her life depended on it as she shook Yasha awake with a bit more force than was strictly necessary, probably.

Yasha woke with a start, blinking up at her with a confused sort of look. “What’s — Jester?”

Jester tried to slow her pulse, which was hammering loudly in her ears for some reason. “It’s your watch,” she said. Her voice still sounded too high.

Yasha sat up, brushing back her wild hair from her face. “Oh, for a moment I thought…” She eyed her concernedly. “Are you alright, Jester? You look a little—”

“I’m _fine_ ,” said Jester.

Caduceus watched her with a kind of knowing amusement as she pulled out her bedroll and spread it out haphazardly, but what, exactly, he thought he knew was a complete mystery. Her nerves were buzzing with some sort of frantic, anxious energy, sure, and she could _feel_ Caleb’s eyes on her from across the Hut, but he was all the way over _there_ and she was _here_ , as far away from him as possible, and that was all that really mattered.

And she was _embarrassed_ — although why, exactly, she couldn’t say; it wasn’t as though this was the first time she’d insulted Caleb’s appearance for no particular reason than the fact that the thought had struck her and the words just tumbled out, regardless of the situation — but maybe it wasn’t that she’d insulted him, actually. She’d _meant_ to, the first time she’d tried to insult him on purpose, just to get back at him for pulling away from her, and it had backfired so spectacularly he’d come away with the impression she _cared_ about his _appearance_. Which was _ridiculous_.

“ _Good night_ ,” she said loudly to no-one, and buried herself beneath the covers.

By the Traveler, her face was _burning_. Why did she even _care_? If he was going to be a dick about his stupid dreams, why the fuck should she care? Why did she feel the need to try to get a rise out of him, to get him to pay attention to her? She didn’t need his attention. He was smelly and weird and wouldn’t let her help him, and she didn’t _need_ his _attention_.

So why was she still thinking about it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [looks at "canon compliant" tag] [tosses it out the window] well that was fun while it lasted.
> 
> listen, i took a 6 month break between eps25 and 26 (You Know Why) and i've never been in a fandom that moves this goddamn fast before. it's giving me anxiety. xiaolin showdown had been dead for years by the time i got my grubby little mitts on it, and miraculous ladybug is deathly allergic to anything even vaguely resembling "continuity." maybe i'm just being paranoid. i mean, i _did_ specify "as much as i can;" i don't know the etiquette here. does the modifier make it okay? should i specify up "canon compliance" up to a certain episode number? do i remove the tag entirely? these are the questions that keep me up at night.
> 
> honestly, i don't even know what i'm apologizing for at this point. you know what fanfiction is. i guess i think i'll just die if i don't shoehorn in as much exposition as humanly possible to somehow justify my shipping desires, and then try to justify my justifications, and then ramble my way into an anxiety-driven circle-jerk of endless babbling until everything collapses five hours after posting because of some improvised lore-drop in a throwaway line during a pretend bar fight on twitch that's suddenly canon now because that's the kind of show i've sold my soul to i guess.
> 
> just go with me on this, it'll make me feel better, and we can muddle through this ~*~together~*~ as i figure out how to words again.
> 
> it'll be, like, so great, you guys. pinkie promise.
> 
> EDIT: in a glorious bit of irony, posting this was a clusterfuck and things were dropped and shuffled around and it was just a whole-ass mess okay. it might be a little wonky while i figure out how bad it actually is. my most sincere apologies. now please excuse me as i go strangle something. posted to tumblr [here.](https://ladywritesthings.tumblr.com/post/184100859743/i-was-meant-to-be-yours-ch3/)
> 
> [main.](http://ladyofpurple.tumblr.com/)  
> [writing blog.](http://ladywritesthings.tumblr.com/)


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